


We Share This Humble Path Alone

by Gigi_Sinclair



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Canon - Book, Canonical Character Death, Friends to Spouses to Friends, Gen, Marriage of Convenience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 20:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20880002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigi_Sinclair/pseuds/Gigi_Sinclair
Summary: "Elisabeth Jopson married a sailor because she wanted to be left alone."





	We Share This Humble Path Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Based on that one sentence in the book that tells us Thomas Jopson is married with a son. 
> 
> For those, like me, who are detail obsessed: The book makes it very clear Thomas dies on his 31st birthday in 1848, meaning he was born, naturally, in 1817. This conflicts with the show wiki/biographical birthdate of 1821, but I'm going with 1817 for this one. 
> 
> TW: Includes brief mention of a character hoping for a miscarriage, which doesn't happen.

_Though we share this humble path, alone/How fragile is the heart/Oh give these clay feet wings to fly/To touch the face of the stars._Loreena McKennitt, "Dante's Prayer"

Elisabeth Jopson married a sailor because she wanted to be left alone. 

She did love Thomas, in a way. They grew up together, running wild through the rookery with a gang of other children. Thomas was always gentler than the rest of the boys. Kinder. He was never rough, never coarse or rude like them. When the others tied empty tins to the tails of stray cats, Thomas would follow after and untie them, often getting himself scratched to bits in the process.

He was more ambitious than anyone else. Their neighbours would grow up like their fathers: to be dock workers and labourers and hired men, or else drunkards, layabouts, petty crooks. Thomas wanted more. He learned to read, which most didn't. He yearned to join the Navy, but not as an able bodied seaman. 

“I can't imagine shimmying up the rigging like a monkey,” he told her once, as they sat side-by-side on a bench in the churchyard. “I'm more domestic than acrobatic.” When his mother took ill, he cared for her better than a daughter would have. Better than Elisabeth would have cared for her mother. 

Despite his devotion to his family, Thomas went to sea as a youth, like most sailors did, and when he came back for the first time, he asked Elisabeth to marry him. He was eighteen and she seventeen. Young for such a decision, but not too young, not where they lived, where life had to be squeezed into a shorter number of years than often awarded to those from other places. 

“All right,” Elisabeth agreed, although she hadn't considered them sweethearts before then, and doubted he did. Her sister Mary said, “You'll never find anyone better,” and she was right. More than that, Elisabeth didn't want to have to look. 

Early on, Elisabeth realized she didn't like boys in the way her friends did. She didn't swoon over the handsome ones, nor did she long for some prince or wealthy gentleman to come to Marylebone, of all places, and sweep her off her feet. Even when Thomas kissed her, quick and light, it felt underwhelming. She just couldn't see what all the fuss was about. 

He went away again not long later, and was gone for eighteen months. He left Elisabeth with enough money for her own flat, which she furnished to her liking. She had her mother and sisters for tea every now and then, and there were occasional visits from her friends, but mostly she could do as she pleased. She didn't have to clean a man's clothes or darn a man's socks, like other married women. She didn't have to put up with a man's moods, or, all too often, a man's violence, but she was still afforded respect, still seen as a real, grown woman because she bore the title “Mrs.” 

When Thomas came home, it was a shock. After eighteen months of freedom, having to suddenly share her rooms with somebody else was far more difficult than Elisabeth expected.

Not that Thomas was a boor, or hard to live with. If anything, he was too easy. Thomas insisted on doing all of the cleaning, the mending, the serving, just as he did when at sea. He let her cook, and never complained about what she made, but he didn't seem to notice it, either. More often than not, he wolfed down a plate in a hurry, like he had somewhere else to be, although it was painfully obvious there was nowhere for him to go. 

They seldom made love. It was still too often for Elisabeth's liking. Thomas always kept his eyes tightly shut, while Elisabeth lay quietly, waiting for it to be over with. 

“Am I hurting you?” Was all Thomas would say, to which Elisabeth always replied, “It's all right.” When he finished, it felt like a relief. She wondered, sometimes, if he had other women when he was away. Everyone knew about sailors and their doxies. If he had, he never made mention of it to her, or asked her to do anything he might have learned from them. 

A month after he left for Antarctica, Elisabeth knew for certain she was pregnant. 

Babies were not an obsession of Elisabeth's. They were a fact of life, but one she'd hoped to escape by having relations so rarely. According to Mary, it often took many concentrated attempts to fall pregnant, and she'd offered a list of directions to help increase Elisabeth's chances. Elisabeth hadn't followed any of them. 

At first, she hoped the baby might bleed away from her, as she'd seen happen to Mary and to many other women. When enough time had passed to make that seem unlikely, Elisabeth began to worry about childbirth. The second eldest of nine children, she had helped her mother through it many times, and her elder sister more than once. When her time came, it was as nightmarish as she'd thought, the worst experience of a life that had been fraught with unpleasantness, but once it was over, she found the true depth of the pain was quickly forgotten. _Of course it is_, Elisabeth thought, holding her newborn son to her breast. _Or nobody would ever have more than one child._

She had the baby christened Avery Thomas, Avery being her maiden name. It was unusual, but there were enough Harrys and Johns and Jameses about. Her own name was slightly out of the ordinary, too, in that she was never a Lizzie or a Betsy or a Bess. 

Avery was a good baby, quiet and sweet. Elisabeth wrote to inform his father of his safe arrival. Around a year later, a letter from Thomas arrived congratulating her on the birth of _her_ son. Many men thought of children that way, as the products and responsibilities of their mothers, but the wording still struck her. It was accurate. Avery was hers. He might have also been Thomas' by birth, but Thomas didn't even set eyes on the boy until Avery was three years old. 

As soon as Thomas arrived home again, Elisabeth knew he wouldn't stay long. He was more restless than before, even short-tempered at times. He didn't attempt to lie with her, and Elisabeth, of course, didn't approach him. Even if she had been interested, she wasn't about to risk another baby. 

Thomas liked Avery, but took no interest in him. He was never cruel, but was more at home mending Avery's clothing or making his little bed than he was speaking to or playing with the boy himself. Avery, agitated by the arrival of this stranger in their midst, was more fractious than normal. One evening, when he was crying for no reason Elisabeth could discern, screaming and wailing until his nose ran and his face turned red, Thomas snapped, “For God's sake, can't you shut him up?” 

Elisabeth blinked, taken aback by this impatience. She picked Avery up and rocked him, like she had when he was an infant. Thomas avoided her gaze, but when Avery had been soothed to sleep, he said, “I apologize for my rudeness.” 

“He's a child, Thomas. They get on everybody's nerves.” She meant it as an expression of understanding, but it sounded like reproach. 

"I am poor husband and a poorer father.” Thomas sighed.

“You provide for us. You don't beat us.” 

He laughed. “That's a low bar indeed.” 

“Perhaps you aren't meant for this life.” Just as Elisabeth was not meant for the life of a dutiful wife and mother. She cared for Avery as best as she could, but given the choice, she would never have had him. “There's no shame in that.” 

Thomas' eyes slid shut. When he opened them, Elisabeth saw a gleam of tears. “There is a very good deal of shame in my life.” 

Elisabeth knew what he meant. She couldn't have explained how, but she knew. She'd known, she realized, forever, and she was not repulsed, as she supposed most would be. Instead, she moved to sit beside Thomas. For the first time in a long time, her heart went out to him.“You are a good man. Nothing can change that.” 

“But I...”

“Nothing,” Elisabeth repeated. “And it's my fondest hope our son grows up to be as kind and courageous as you.” 

Now that she knew his secret, Elisabeth felt protective of Thomas. She wondered what it must be like for him to be so afflicted and to choose to place himself in such close quarters with so many men. Would it be like a poor child going to a toy shop, she wondered, surrounded by delights he couldn't touch? Or did Thomas touch them? If so, she hoped he had the sense to be careful. She wanted to tell him this, to let him know she wished him to be happy but above all she wanted him to be safe, but she couldn't find the right words. 

She and Avery went to Greenhithe to see _Terror_ leave port. Later, she was glad that Thomas had the chance to show Avery his ship, glad Avery would have that memory. As they stood on the dock, an officer, tall with broad shoulders and gold epaulettes, stopped beside them. 

“Mr. Jopson.” He looked at Thomas. “Who is this?” 

Thomas' cheeks flushed beneath the other man's scrutiny. Elisabeth couldn't tell if it was for professional reasons, or personal ones. “My wife, sir. And my son, Avery.” Elisabeth pulled Avery's fingers out of his mouth, as he stared up at the man in awe. 

“Madam.” The officer tipped his hat. He was handsome, with thick whiskers and dark eyes. “We are most fortunate to have your husband on our voyage.” 

“Please take care of him, sir,” Elisabeth replied, vehemently. 

If he was taken aback by her tone of voice—Elisabeth was, a little—he didn't show it. “Of course. Although I rather think he will be the one taking care of us.” The officer touched Avery's head. Not to tousle his hair or tweak his nose, just to touch him. “Mr. Jopson,” he said, again, and walked on. Thomas watched him board the ship and disappear below decks. He looked like he longed to follow. 

Elisabeth obliged him. “We should say good-bye. We'll come back in the morning to wave off the ship.” 

Thomas bent to Avery's level. “Be a good boy,” he told him. “The next time I see you, you'll be big and strong.” 

“Stronger than a bear?” Avery asked, hopefully.

“I shouldn't be one bit surprised.” 

Thomas stood and embraced Elisabeth. An unexpected wave of emotion hit her as she kissed his cheek. “Come back,” she said. Their marriage was unusual in many ways, but he'd been her friend almost all her life. She wanted to see him again one day.

“I will,” Thomas said. 

It was the only explicit lie he ever told her. 

Elisabeth was no devotee of the occult. Her sisters regularly attended séances at which mediums channelled late husbands and dead mothers, but Elisabeth was skeptical, to say the least. A woman at the end of the road read tea leaves, but, while Elisabeth's friends claimed she was eerily accurate, Elisabeth had never felt the need to try it herself. Not even when Thomas' expedition stretched on, and on, and on. Not even when rumours began to fly that they were lost, trapped in the ice, dead at the hand of the natives, or the animals, or scurvy. 

Elisabeth ignored the rumours, and the whispers, and the looks of pity thrown her way. More importantly, she shielded Avery from it all. He never asked after Thomas, but at eight years old, he was growing more and more like his father every day. 

Thomas' advanced salary ran out, and no more money seemed forthcoming from the Navy. Elisabeth took a piecework job as a French polisher, putting the finish on chairs and small tables. Mostly, she avoided looking at newspapers. 

One night in August, after she'd finished her last chair of the day and gone to bed, Elisabeth dreamed. Thomas walked into her room, red-cheeked and bright eyed as always, wearing an officer's uniform with gold on his shoulders and a bicorn hat on his head. He smiled at her, but before she could speak, he turned his back and left. When Elisabeth woke up, she knew so surely and absolutely what had happened that she wept.

“Mother?” Avery appeared in her doorway, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Are you all right?” He sounded worried, and he sounded like Thomas. Elisabeth had to tell him. 

“Your father is dead.” 

Avery didn't say anything. He crossed the small bedroom and climbed into Elisabeth's bed. He hadn't done it for years, but he curled up beside her, and Elisabeth held him close. 

She hoped Thomas hadn't suffered much. She hoped he'd had someone with him when he died. A friend. Someone he loved. Someone who'd loved him. She hoped he'd experienced happiness up there in the Arctic, at least for a little while.

Elisabeth married a sailor because she had no desire to live with a husband. _But I didn't mean it like this_, she thought, angrily, not knowing whether her anger was directed at God, at the Navy, or at Thomas himself. 

“Don't cry, Mother,” Avery said. His eyes were dry. It seemed unnatural at first, but then Elisabeth remembered that Thomas was nothing to him, an occasional visitor he'd seen once or twice in his life and could likely barely remember. “I'll look after you.” 

He may not have known his father, but in that moment, Avery _was_ Thomas, bending over a tortured cat in the Marylebone mud. 

“I love you,” Elisabeth told him. She meant it for the two of them, for Thomas and for Avery, and she couldn't recall ever saying it before. 

“I know that,” Avery replied, and Elisabeth hoped he spoke for both of them in return.


End file.
